Plenty of pundits pounced on Palin’s resurrection of failed Civil War general George McClellan in last night’s debate (apparently, she meant General David McKiernan, who is alive), but not many noticed her erasure of near four centuries of history when she attributed John Winthrop’s 1630 description of New England as “a City upon a Hill” to Ronald Reagan, who in his farewell address — like many presidents before him — declared the U.S. a “shining city upon a hill.” Here’s Palin: “And we are to be that shining city on a hill, as President Reagan so beautifully said, that we are a beacon of hope and that we are unapologetic here.” Darn straight! We’re rewriting history, and we are going to not let the “mainstream media” say we’re sorry! According to Winthrop, though, it’ll be the Lord who’ll hold Sarah to account. His next sentence reads: “soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our god in this worke wee have undertaken and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a byword through the world.”